One thing we can all agree on about this market is that it has been unusually weak. The buyers are standing aside, breadth is terrible, the technical patterns are bearish and the recent bounces have been anemic at best. There aren't too many folks out there who are going to suggest that this is healthy action.

Although we may have a consensus on the current state of the market there is a wide variation in how investors choose to deal with it. It is at times like this that your particular style of investing comes to the forefront.

The one thing that all top traders and investors have in common is their own personal style -- they learn to capitalize on their unique set of skills and emotions. What many people fail to realize is that it is possible for two traders with completely opposite styles to both be very successful.

Success in the market is far more dependent on execution than it is on style, which means that both a contrarian investor who is buying weakness and a trend-following investor who is selling it can both beat the market handily if they are adept at executing their styles.

The most important considerations in shaping your particular style is your ultimate goal. The primary goal of most of traditional Wall Street is to outperform a benchmark index. If they can produce a better return than the S&P 500 or the DJIA then they consider themselves a success even if that means that they simply lost less than their benchmark index.

For many individual investors and traders the benchmarks are meaningless. For someone like me the goal is to produce a steady stream of income over a number of years. So my priority is to make sure that I protect my capital when the market is struggling. Not losing money is more important than beating an index.

In finding your personal investing style your first step is to understand what your ultimate goals really are. If you are competing against institutional investors and funds, they are probably going to focus on beating the indices. If you are trading in order to pay your monthly bills. then you are likely to focus on quick gains and capital preservation.

Once you are clear on what you want to obtain from the market, then you can work on developing the style in which to do that. Remember that no style is inherently superior -- it depends on your goals and your execution.

We have another slight bounce to start the day, which hasn't been particularly good for the bulls lately. The early morning strength has tended to falter very quickly and the bulls are likely to stay cautious as it occurs again.

Overnight earnings reports weren't particularly strong, with Silicon Laboratories (SLAB:Nasdaq) being particularly poor. The contrarians are becoming anxious to buy this market, and that is likely to help keep things choppy.

Semiguy: here is a good economics lessonBettie: hmm?Semiguy: why do co's cut prices of chips?Bettie: bc theres less demand?Bettie: and they have inventorySemiguy: rightSemiguy: they need to get rid of inventorySemiguy: and how do you do it? you lower prices....which cuts into aspsBettie: yBettie: simpleSemiguy: and makes for a shitty outlook as supply is being dictated by weaker demand curvesBettie: what ya think will happen during the next few quarters?Semiguy: back end loaded...sell through picked up first two weeks in july, disconnect as inventories keep building and orders continue to slow as distis show slow trending upwards, back to school going to be weak, xmas gonna be better... Semiguy: so what does that mean? wait for all the downgradesBettie: Q3 will be in-line at best. Q4 will show improvement. Semiguy: to go through, then analysts will upgrade in Q4 as visiblity no longer becomes an issueBettie: my thoughts exactlySemiguy: intc guided 10%, wiht inventory overhang and lowered gross margins, this tells me it is not that bad and all of the friends of intc will pick up in Q4, cell phones are going to suck and the name in that space who is going to be ok is TXN, wireless LAN sucks ass and the only guys who will make money are BRCM and MRVL and Taiwanese cannibalizers, Analog semis are the only names to own during the downturnBettie: makes sense